Point of View

The novel is told almost entirely from Marcus’ perspective, as Marcus narrates the events of the novel from his first-person point of view. This mode of narration supports the emotional weight of the novel by providing direct insights into Marcus’ emotional state at any given point in the narrative. Direct access to Marcus’ thoughts and psychology also provides insights into his motives and into the substances of his various moral quandaries. When the novel switches in the final pages to a third-person omniscient narrator, it is because Marcus has truly died as opposed to only thinking he is dead due to the effects of morphine.

Although the novel is told entirely from Marcus’ perspective aside from the last few pages, the novel uses Marcus’ experiences and observations as a way of providing indirect insights into the perspectives of the other characters. For example, although Caudwell...